FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Internet-driven smart city transforming lives

Internet-driven smart city transforming lives

China plans to quicken its pace of building smart-city clusters and apply next-generation information technology to raise the efficiency of city management.

 The phrase 'smart city' became a buzzword after the central government made the development of smart-city technology and projects a key national policy. But what does a smart city really mean, and what will it bring to us?
 
An industry pundit believes that a smart city is not just about the integration of multiple forms of information and communications technology (ICT) and internet solutions into urban life, but a continuing process to change our daily lives under the power of the internet.
 
“I think the words ‘smart city’ describes a process, which has been growing for a long time and will continue to grow in the future,” said Peter Greenhill, head of e-Business at Equiom.
 
Equiom is a global corporate services provider which is now preparing to expand into China. The company focuses on delivering bespoke ownership structures, and providing professional tax and e-business advice for a broad range of companies, including ultra-high-net-worth individuals, across a variety of markets.
 
Under China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), the country will quicken its pace of building smart-city clusters and apply next-generation information technology to raise the efficiency of city management, directly boosting the demand for the application of internet technology in a number of sectors such as transport, environmental monitoring and municipal management and generating opportunities for relevant service suppliers to enter the market.
 
In order to build a smart city, the central government launched the Internet Plus strategy to integrate the internet with traditional industries to create a new growth engine and promote the transformation and upgrading of China’s economy.
 
Greenhill said it was inevitable for the country to enter into an internet age, but the implementation of technology will affect the way that individuals work and change people’s job types, so we need to adapt to the changes in our lives.
 
“As we are entering a smart age, internet technology makes our life much easier. For example, now you can shop online, buy insurance policies and chat online. But at the same time, we’ve also seen the number of staff in the marketplace decrease, and many brick and mortar shops have closed down. Then some staff numbers in the physical delivery sector have increased. That’s the major change as we enter the smart age,” he added.
 
In terms of various industries, Greenhill mentioned the cutting-edge technology within the scope of e-Business his team currently is working on.
 
“One example in the retail sector is that we are helping an online sales and marketing service using 3D, virtual reality and avatars to display products in three-dimensional models. As you are a customer, you can walk in this online marketplace, and see checked goods displayed in 3D models instead of 2D pictures. You can really look at the product and understand it.”
 
The same technology can also be applied in the education industry. If a teacher wants to show something to students, for example a lion on the African Savannah, the teacher can bring students into a 3D environment where virtual reality can be used to facilitate students’ learning process.
 
In the entertainment industry, a company is setting up a website that will broadcast live concerts in 3D form, in which users can move around the online stadium to join in the concert.
 
“With healthcare, for example, you can interact with your doctor and make an appointment online. It’s much more efficient for the doctor and the patients,” he added. “Maybe in the future when you put your finger on a personal computer it will test your heartbeat. That will happen.”
 
However, he emphasised that when things are done online, companies should be very careful about cybercrime, including hacking and internal criminal activity, data protection, anti-money laundering, combating financing of terrorism, taxation, among others.
 
Statistics show that cybercrime is rising dramatically in Hong Kong and the mainland. According to a survey published by PricewaterhouseCoopers last December, an average of 1,245 security-related incidents were reported in the mainland and Hong Kong in 2015, surging by 517 per cent over the previous year’s average of 241.
 
Half of the detected cybersecurity incidents were either caused by current or former employees of companies, and the average financial loss due to cybercrimes in both regions rose by 10 per cent to $2.63 million compared to the previous year — as opposed to a 5-per cent decline worldwide.
 
In response to the rise in cybercrimes, Chinese companies invested an additional 16 per cent from their 2015 budgets in information security compared with a year earlier, according to the survey. And spending on cybersecurity in both the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong reached an average of $7.9 million last year, exceeding the global average of $5.1 million.
 
-- China Daily/ANN -- 
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